When One Door Closes Another Opens
by xPaige Turnerx
Summary: AU. A broken heart can split two people apart...but it can also bring two people together. R&R!


**Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight.**

**Rated: T.**

**Author: Paige Turner.**

**Summary: AU. A broken heart can split two people apart...but it can also bring two people together. R&R! ^^**

**BELLA**

_'It was raining cats and dogs the day my life was changed forever. I half expected to see someone building an arc.'_

I sighed, shoving the end of my pen into my mouth and growling to myself. Writing was hard. Ridiculously hard. First you had to figure out what to write, then you had to try and get it out of your head and onto paper, then you have to make sure it's interesting enough for people to read, and finally, you have to spell check it. I was fairly certain whoever invented writing did it just so they could sit back and watch people go insane trying to do it.

Rubbing my eyes and looking out the window, I tried to tune out all the noise surrounding me. I don't know why I attempted to; we were riding the bus, the large metal can itself made racket, that plus all the teenagers talking to one another, yelling from one end of the bus to the other? Yeah, you can forget what the word quiet means. Definitely not a writing environment. Of course, neither was home. With all the crap going on there as well, there really wasn't anywhere to write.

But, it's not like I had anywhere else to, nor could the 'crap' at home be dealt with. It's not like it was their fault.

You see, when you live in a town where everyone is tight like family, everyone is always around. Whether they're all at your house or you're at theirs; you're never alone. Not that I wanted to be…well, only sometimes.

I just needed a break from all this at times, and I thought that writing would be that break; would help me escape this world for a little while. So not the case. If anything, it just stressed me out even more.

"You've been carrying that note pad around with you all day, and _that's_ all you have written down?" I heard a snort.

I sighed again, looking behind me to the people sat there. Long black hair identical to my own, narrowed brown eyes swimming with mirth, a smirk on her face. Leah. Otherwise known as my best friend - wait, let me correct that; otherwise known as my _annoying_ best friend. If there was anyone in this world who could push my buttons; it was Leah. It kind of helped that we had known each other since we could walk. Our mothers had been close when they were younger, so of course when they had girls the same age, they'd get us together.

I stuck my tongue out. "Like you could do better. Besides; master pieces take time." I replied, sticking my chin up in the air and turning back to the front.

A dark hand reached over my shoulder, snatching the note pad from my fingers that were a second too late in locking around the thing. I whirled around, reaching back trying to grab the pad from Leah. Her smirk grew as she ducked down lower in her seat and began laughing her ass off. I scowled, slumping back in my own seat. "If I recall correctly; it was midnight and dark out the day _our_ lives were changed forever." Leah laughed.

I tried to ignore her, but I kind of had this thing where I always had to be right. Kinda sucks sometimes. "Not even! The clouds were dark purple which made it dark out, but it wasn't even night and it was so raining."

Seth, Leah's brother and a few years younger than her and I, was sitting across the isle when he nodded. He looked a lot like Leah, what with the brown eyes and dark skin. He was fairly tall, though all the guys in the pack were, but he was still working on building up his muscle. His shaggy hair whipped around as he nodded furiously. "It really was; 'cause I remember Jake making all those jokes about how you two really did look like pissed off wet cats." He laughed.

Jake, who was in the seat by Leah, nearly spilling out into the isle because of his massiveness, rumbled out his own laugh. The guy was a giant tree when it came to people. He was tall, he was thick, but he was Jake, basically my younger brother as well. "Yeah, that was pretty good." He murmured.

Leah punched his shoulder for me as I glared at him. I turned back to her. "See? Raining. End of story."

"I sure hope not; otherwise this writing business really ain't for you, Bells." Quil barked out a laugh. He, like Jacob, was big as well. Like I said; all the guys were. And they all looked quite alike; short dark hair, dark skin, muscles, and the tattoo on their shoulders of the pack's insignia. Plus they all turned into the same thing; a wolf.

Billy said it had something to do with the pack gene and since they all had it, they would all have the physical characteristics that came with it.

For the girls of the pack; Leah, myself, Rebecca, Rachel, Claire, and Emily… It was a little different. Yes, we had similarities; long black hair, longer muscles rather than bulky ones like the guys, and the pack's insignia tattooed to our shoulders as well, and we all turned into the same thing as well; black panthers. But the similarities ended there. Leah, Rebecca, and Emily all had dark skin, while Claire and myself were pale as ghosts and caucasian. Rebecca and Rachel had grey eyes, ones they inherited from their mother. Leah and Emily both had brown, though Emily's were far darker. Claire had clear blue eyes. And I myself had dark green eyes.

And that my friends is all the 'crap' at home I mentioned earlier. Everything was constantly about the pack; who was patrolling that night, who hadn't Changed in a while, who talked to the vampires that were living in Forks recently, and so on and so forth. Don't get me wrong; I didn't mind that. On the contrary; I quite enjoyed being a part of the pack, spending time with my friends night and day. It's just…sometimes it could be too much. They were always around for pack business…

Before I Changed, I was pretty independent. I mean, yeah, I had Leah and all the others still, but while they were off doing whatever with the pack; I enjoyed my time alone. I lived in La Push, where basically everywhere you turn, you come face to face with forest. And the forest was beautiful; I used to love spending days in there, hiking -though that was hard since I was a total klutz- and just relaxing. But now…now I had to spend all that time patrolling the woods. There was no time for admiring it.

You know why?

Because those damn vampires. Ever since they moved back, everyone's been Changing and all in an uproar.

I had nothing against the vampires, even if I was made to kill them, until I realized how much crap they stirred up. Sam was obsessed with all these rules and treaties and agreements that we all had to memorize and enforce. It was absurd.

And that was all before Jake came back from Forks one day, all upset and ticked off at the fact that his human friend, Brianna, 'fell in love' with one of the vampires.

Now it's all we ever hear. How ridiculous the fact was that she wasn't repulsed by them, or how much danger she was in, or how Sam was sure they were going to drain her, how we had to be ready to attack when they did, over and over and over again.

But hey, I could sympathize with the vamps, I really could. Being a mythical creature…well, drama kind of just swarms you. It's not like I didn't have my own. You wouldn't believe how upside down my life was turned when I Imprinted-

I gasped, a hand flying up to cover my heart as a searing pain tore through my chest.

Claire, who was sitting in front of me, realized something was up and knew me well enough to know what was going on. "Hey, cut that out Bella. Stop thinking about him." She said, reaching back and patting my shoulder.

I looked up with teary eyes and nodded, forcing a smile. "I'm fine. Really."

Embry slipped his hand into mine, since he was sitting with me, and smiled a small smile. I returned it and stood with him as the bus came to a halt at our stop.

Nearly half the bus emptied, because we all were headed to the same place. The Black's. And since the pack was so large and we all went to school together, we took up nearly the whole bus. There was a lot of us. Sam, Jake, Emily, Leah, myself, Embry, Claire, Quil, Seth, Rebecca, and Rachel. That's eleven if you can't count.

Everyone was shifting from foot to foot looking at each other, and I knew I was responsible for the uncomfortable silence. It always got like that whenever I thought of my Imprint.

I cleared my throat, slinking off to the path that lead through part of the forest towards the Black's house that was way deep in the bush. I heard Leah jog and catch up to me while the others fallowed a safe distance behind, talking to one another about this and that, mostly just when we were having a bon fire next and if Jake could invite the human.

Leah shoved her hands into her pockets and fell in step with me, looking up to the tops of the extremely tall trees. "So…" She blew out the air from her mouth in a sigh. "You want to talk about it?" She asked.

I shifted the backpack on my back, slithering my arms around my chest as I shook my head. "No. I've tried that, and it didn't help. I tried not thinking about him and it didn't help. I've tried visiting his gravestone and it didn't help. And I've tried running away and it didn't help. Nothing helps. Nothing ever has and nothing ever will. There will always be the pain. Always be the missing part in my chest. There will always be longing and hopelessness and I just don't want to talk about it anymore!" I exploded.

I didn't mean to. I knew she only meant well and was trying to help. But I couldn't stand it whenever everyone asked if I wanted to talk about it. I got that they wanted to know what happens when someone's Imprint dies, so they would know for the future; but I didn't want to be the one to tell them. I couldn't express it; I could barely _handle_ it.

Leah wrapped an arm around my shoulders and I looked down at my feet. "Of course you don't. I should have known better than to ask."

Great, now I felt like an ass reacting like that.

I rolled my shoulders, shrugging off my backpack and sweater, leaving me in my baggy white sweat pants and black tank top. Buying nice jeans and tops was pointless when you knew the chances of shredding them for a quick Change was high. I kicked off my shoes, they were new, and gave my things to Leah who nodded. "I'm going for a run and it's my night to patrol the border anyways. Tell Charlie where I am if he asks."

"Alright. Later." Leah called but I was already gone.

Running as a human, I wasn't as fast as I could be, but I didn't want to Change right away. I wanted to make sure there was no chance of the guys seeing me naked. Leah made that mistake once and Jake never let her hear the end of it.

I ran through the trees, jumping over fallen logs, and boulders as the sun lowered to the tops of the trees. The forest really was a nice place; it was cool which was nice since our body temperatures were always rather high, it had clean crisp air, nice peace and quiet. It was one of my favourite places around here for miles and miles. Most of the others like Seattle which was pretty close. I guess because it was far away from here where we were trapped. But I rather liked it and didn't mind one bit that I was trapped.

A grin broke out across my face the faster I went, zipping in between trees. My feet barely touched the forest floor as I nearly glided through it, farther and farther away from civilization. I knew the border between us and the vampires was coming up, but I couldn't bring myself to care enough to slow down. If I did cross and ran into one of them, I'd just say I lost track of where I was -which wouldn't exactly be a lie- and they'd probably just let me go. They were much more reasonable than Sam. If they so much as stepped across the treaty line, then we were ordered to kill. Yeah, Sam was kind of crazy like that. Luckily, the vamps were smart enough to stay on their side.

I skidded to a stop, whipping around to the back of a large tree and held my breath. There were voices, and I knew that everyone was still back at the Black's. I would have heard them pass me. Which meant the voices probably belonged to vampires. Or hikers. I seriously hoped it was the latter.

"So what; you're j-just done with this?" Pain laced the voice that nearly broke.

Curiosity got the better of me and I peeked around the side of the tree, my eyes scanning the area for vampires.

There!

There were two of them, standing a few feet away from each other. The first one I saw was rather tall, with curly/wavy blond hair with gold mixed in it. He was covered in scars, most likely from his own kind, which meant he could definitely hold his own and inflict some major damage if all those vampires weren't able to kill him. I'd have to keep my eye on him for sure; though I didn't think he'd start anything. Their coven leader, Carlisle, was a good man and assured Sam and Jake that they would respect the treaty and we wouldn't have any problems with them.

The other vampire, the one who spoke, was much much shorter. She seemed tiny compared to him. Her hair was spiked out in every direction, and ink black, her skin as pale as my own, her features small and pixie like. All the vampires who lived in Forks had gold eyes since they hunted animals instead of humans, but this vampire's were black, which peaked my interest. Her shoulders were slumped and shaking as she looked at him with a frown on her face.

The blonde vampire sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry, Alice. It's not like I _chose_ to feel like this. I didn't know it would happen. I'm sorry." He said, stepping towards her.

She stepped back, wiping her face, though I couldn't see any tears. She cleared her throat, shaking her head. "No, you know what? It's fine, Jasper. Y-you're right; you can't help how you feel. I understand. I'm not mad at you or Kate. It's fine." She said, squaring her shoulders.

I knew what that meant. It meant she was hurt, she was sad, she was angry, but she wanted to be alone. I used to do the same shoulder squaring and stone mask right after..._his_ funeral.

This Jasper bloke looked at her for a few seconds before nodding, looking down at his feet. "We should head back to the house, it's been a few hours now; Esme will start worrying soon." He said.

The small one, Alice, shook her head. "I kind of want to be alone for a few minutes, if that's alright. I'll head back soon I just...need to think and things." She replied in a small voice.

He stared at her for a few seconds again before leaning down to kiss her forehead and blurred back off in the forest away from her and I.

Alice breathed in and out deeply for a few minutes and I stood there, watching her steel herself. Her shoulders stopped shaking.

I froze as she turned to face me, or rather, my general direction. She took one more deep breath before closing her eyes and slowly walking towards me. My jaw fell opened as she approached the treaty line, knowing that I'd have to attack if she crossed it. My heart started hammering in my chest when she still didn't stop, didn't slow down, and didn't open her eyes.

Was she trying to kill herself?

I remember that stage as well.

Her foot lifted and hovered right over the border line...

The air was knocked from me as I tackled her down onto her own side of the border, looking over my shoulder and listening with strained ears to hear if any of the others sensed she was close to cross ing and came charging.

It was pretty quiet... They didn't know.

I looked back down underneath me, my green eyes locking on pitch black ones that were staring up at me with curiosity deep deep down beneath the pain.

I growled in her face. "Are you out of your damn mind? Are you _trying_ to kill yourself? Do you know what I would have had to do if you crossed the border?" I shrieked.

A small, twisted smile graced her face. "I'm aware." She whispered.

I sat back on her thighs, pinning her arms because I knew she was still in the suicidal stage and wouldn't be giving up that quickly. "I don't _care_ if your boyfriend broke up with you; you can't _do_ that to me! You can't force me to kill you! That's not fair!"

Her frown deepened and she hissed up at me. "Life isn't fair!" She yelled.

I growled right back, lifting her shoulders and slamming them back down into the ground. I'd beat the sense back into her if I had to. "No; it isn't. But we learn to deal, just like you need to now."

She started squirming and I struggled to keep my hold on her but it was rather difficult. "I don't want to deal; I want to escape this pain. I c-can't handle it...It's -t-too much!" She choked out.

"Suck it up, butter cup." I spat back. She wasn't the only one who went through heartbreak, but it's not like you see me or anyone else trying to kill themselves.

The trees around me blurred as I was thrown across the little clearing into a tree. I groaned, rubbing the back of my hip as I got to my feet. Delicate, yet strong, small, cold hands wrapped around my neck, lifting me from my feet and sliding me up the tree. I looked down at the little Alice, lifting my feet and propping them on her shoulders and kicking off as hard as I could.

She was launched back across the clearing into trees of her own as I landed on my feet again.

I took a deep breath, bracing myself as the little blur of black and pale skin rushed back at me, tackling me to the ground again. I spun around, throwing her off me, but apparently she caught on to my plan. I had been throwing and kicking her farther and farther away from the treaty line, but she seemed to realize that now.

She barred her fangs at me before blurring back through the trees towards the line.

I growled furiously.

Little, speedy, damn vampire...

I squeezed my eyes shut as I felt the familiar tingle run through my body before it exploded into the large black cat.

Total power rush.

My paws pounded across the forest floor as I hurtled through the trees yet again. Claws dug into the ground, leaving a trail of ripped earth behind me as I tore through the forest as breakneck speeds. I caught sight of the little vampire in front of me and growled again.

As humans, we weren't as...super, for lack of a better term, as the vampires.

When we shifted, we were, and the fact that we also had _four_ legs, made us faster than them; just like a regular dog or cat is faster than a regular human.

I rammed my shoulder into her back, smashing her against a tree she would have originally just missed.

She looked up at me and gasped, her eyes growing wide and flashing gold with surprise for a second. Of course, they returned to their blackness and hard, as she kicked me back off her. I rolled over, to my feet and slowly started circling her, a growl permanently rumbling from my chest. She too, either forgot what she was trying to do before, or simply wasn't interested in it anymore, as she glared at me, circling around as well.

Her eyes kept switching from mine to my tail, which was flicking around, keeping her distracted while I thought about things.

Like; did I just seriously piss off a vampire and now she wants to kill me?

And; Which way was the treaty line now?

She blinked and I took off in a random direction through the forest again. I could hear her behind me, growling as she shot after me, trying to catch up.

I soon came to a skidding stop again as the edge of the cliff I hadn't realized we were on, came into view. Breathing a sigh of relief as I finally stopped a few feet away from the edge, I slowly started backing up.

I yelped, squeezing my eyes shut as I felt my shoulder explode with pain as it was knocked from it's socket as the little concrete vampire slammed into me, sending us both over the edge. Since I couldn't exactly yell out loud; I was screaming bloody murder in my head, on my way down all the way until we slashed into the water down below.

I resurfaced as a human, because it would be ten times easier to pop my shoulder back in place like this, rather than as a large panther. I bit my lip, stifling my scream into a whimper as I popped it back in.

Glaring at the gold eyes staring at me across the water we landed in, I crossed my arms over my chest. "That hurt!"

Alice cocked her head to the side. "You're not a wolf." She stated.

Was she serious? That's all she had to say? "Duh; thank you captain obvious." I growled.

She furrowed her eyebrows, frowning slightly. "I thought only werewolves lived on the reservation."

Weren't vampires supposed to like, know everything? Because they've been around for hundreds of years? "Werewolves are extinct. You vampires hunted them all down and killed them." I replied.

The little vampire looked utterly confused. "Then what are you?" She asked.

I raised an eyebrow at her. Did she really not know anything about us? "A shape shifter."

Her eyes grew wide with wonder. "You can shape shift?"

I nodded slowly. "Yes. Into a panther." I said, pronouncing everything slowly and loudly.

She glared at me. "I know that. What else?"

I shook my head. "Nothing. We can only Change into one animal; and you stick with it since your very first Change. The guys in the pack all shifted into wolves, while us girls shifted into panthers. Emily didn't like the idea of being a dog and we all kind of agreed." I smirked.

"Oh." She said, her eyes losing focus. I assumed she was going over everything. She blinked a few times, scratching the back of her neck. "Thank you."

I cleared my throat, looking away. "You're welcome...or whatever." I mumbled.

Alice sighed, pulling herself out of the water, her clothes dripping wet. "I really should head back. Esme will send everyone out to look for me if I don't." She smiled a small smile. I nodded, swimming over to the edge as well, though I was waiting for her to leave before getting out of the water. I was kind of naked and it'd be weird. "One more question...Why?"

I tilted my head to the side. "Why what?" I asked.

"Why did you help me? Why not just wait for me to cross and kill me? All the others always seem pretty eager to fight." She commented.

I shrugged, making figure eights in the water with my finger. "Because, I know what you're going through, and I know that I wish there was someone to stop me at the time." I murmured, tracing the scar on one of my wrists. I coughed. "But, luckily I'm a mythical creature and it takes more than some puny razor to kill me." I laughed awkwardly, looking anywhere but at her.

Chilly finger lifted my chin up to look into her sad, black eyes. "I'm sorry... And thank you."

I smiled and nodded. "You're welcome."

She stood again and started walking towards the trees, though just before she disappeared within them, she turned back to me. "I'm Alice, by the way."

"Nice to meet you, Alice. I'm Bella."

She grinned at me, a bright smile. "Bella. We're going to be great friends, you and I."

I snorted. "A shape shifter and a vampire? That's highly improbable; everyone says it's impossible for us to get along." I replied. Jake had tried, for Brianna, but he still hated that Edward guy. They weren't exactly hostile anymore, but they didn't like each other.

"We'll just have to prove them wrong then; won't we?" Alice sang, winking before she blurred off back through the trees.

**XxXxXxXxX**

**I know, I know. **_**Another**_** story. I'm sorry! It's a sickness! I can't stop!**

**Review though? ^^**

**-Paige.**


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